DNA based data storage and computation provider CATALOG raises $10m

Author: Carly Weller

CATALOG, the world’s first DNA based platform for massive digital data storage and computation, has announced it has secured $10m in Series A funding and named David Turek CTO.

Horizons Ventures led this current oversubscribed round, joined by Airbus Ventures, and the investment will be used to fund early product trials and continued Research and Development. In total, CATALOG has raised $21m through additional investors, including NEA, OS Fund, Data Collective, AME Cloud, and SOSV, among others.

CATALOG addresses challenges facing data-intensive industries. According to a recent report, the amount of data created, captured, and replicated every year will grow to over 175 zettabytes by 2025, up from 33 zettabytes today. While the cost of traditional storage has been declining, the average enterprise storage system lifespan is less than five years, and storage density capability isn’t keeping pace with the explosive data growth.

Founded in 2016 by MIT scientists, CATALOG says it is the first company to develop a commercially viable solution that uses a data storage medium as old as life itself, DNA. DNA as a storage device is orders of magnitude smaller and denser than standard drives will ever be. A football field’s worth of storage capacity – or over one billion gigabytes of data – can fit into a sugar cube size container of DNA and remain stable for thousands of years.

CATALOG, in collaboration with Cambridge Consultants in the UK, developed an innovative device using technology similar to inkjet printers to convert the zeros and ones used to store binary data in traditional storage into a combination of pre-synthesized DNA molecules. This technology can hold a million times more data in the same volume of magnetic and solid-state media. CATALOG’s custom-developed DNA writer and data storage system, Shannon, can write at a speed of over 10Mb/sec and generates over a trillion identifiers in a single run. It can store up to 1.63Tb of compressed data in a single run. An entire warehouse of storage can be replaced by Shannon, which can fit into a family size kitchen.

CATALOG recently demonstrated its technology by storing the full English text version of Wikipedia into synthetic DNA molecules. A total of 16 gigabytes of data was stored, which is significantly more data than ever previously captured into DNA.

Dave Turek named CTO

David Turek brings more than 25 years of executive experience to CATALOG. Turek joins CATALOG from IBM, where he held several executive positions leading the company’s high-performance computing strategy. Turek led the commercialisation of the IBM Deep Blue Supercomputer, which defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, spearheaded programs to create the world’s most powerful supercomputers, including Roadrunner and Blue Gene, and launched innovative business models around open source for high-performance computing. Several times in his career, Turek has testified to the United States Congress on the future of computing in the US and has helped establish technical collaborations with universities, businesses, and government agencies worldwide. As CTO, Turek will be responsible for technical strategy, business development, and collaborations.